by Wendy Loft

Created on: February 09, 2007   Last Updated: April 19, 2007

Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! These are methods advertisements, television commercials, literature in books and pamphlets encourage each individual to actively employ. Also, as adults, we can demonstrate to children, young adults, and even peers, through role modelling and teaching, how to do our personal best to prevent the continued deterioration of our environment. I wish our individual efforts were enough to slow down what is happening to our world.

Ways in which we can assist in sustaining a healthy environment and assist in slowing or decreasing the negative impacts on the environment that humans are responsible for, include, but are not limited to my following suggestions, many of which I learned through using the resources of people and government bodies who try to send the message through publication and media.

REDUCE!
Use only what you need, be it water, paper goods, plastics, hydro/electricity, etc. A simple example would be our use of paper towels, tissues, toilet paper, paper to write on, the water we use for bathing, showering, filling swimming our swimming pools, washing our vehicles, washing dishes and clothes, cooking, garbage control in and outside of the home (bags, bags, and more bags!) and during shopping trips. At home, we can reduce our load of garbage, the number of bags we take to the landfill or set out for the garbage truck, by placing biodegradable items in our compost such as peelings from fruit and vegetables, coffee grounds, egg shells. Compost, added to the soil in your garden each spring, puts nutrients back into the soil which promotes healthy results in your garden vegetables and fruits. Electricity consumption can be reduced by turning down sources like home heating, entertainment (television, radio, computer), hot water temperature, air conditioning, waterbeds. The small town in which I reside, surrounded on three sides by bodies of water, and the land forested heavily with evergreens and cedars and a few softwood trees, creates a beautiful environment to which tourists and cottagers flock, mostly during spring to fall seasons. Unfortunately, tourists and even local residents do "litter," their garbage sometimes blowing to the waterfront on the rocky shores and into the roadside bush and tree-lined areas. The availability of garbage cans and dumpsters/bins helps reduce some of the litter; however, there still is plenty of it to be found along the roadways and some along the shoreline. For several years now, I have sort of "adopted"

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